Silk Roads

 

British Museum

26 September 2024 – 23 February 2025

Camel caravans crossing desert dunes, merchants trading silks and spices at bazaars – these are images that come to mind when we think of the Silk Roads. But the reality goes far beyond this.

A ground-breaking exhibition at the British Museum, Silk Roads challenges and expands the modern popular concept of the ‘Silk Road’ as a simple history of trade between ‘East’ and ‘West’. Rather than a single trade route, the Silk Roads were made up of overlapping networks linking communities across Asia, Africa and Europe, from East Asia to Britain, Scandinavia to Madagascar.

This major show is the first to look at how the epic journeys of people, objects and ideas along the Silk Roads shaped cultures and histories. The Silk Roads were in use for millennia, and the exhibition focuses on a defining period in their history, from about AD 500–1000. These centuries saw significant leaps in connectivity and the rise of major religions that linked communities across continents.

Structured into five geographical zones, the exhibition showcases more than 300 objects – including loans from national and international institutions. From Tang Chinese ceramics destined for ports in the Middle East to Indian garnets found in Suffolk, they reveal the astonishing reach of these networks.

Many of the items are on display in the UK for the very first time, including the oldest group of chess pieces ever found and a monumental six-metre-long wall painting from the ‘Hall of the

Ambassadors’ in Afrasiab (Samarkand), Uzbekistan. The painting evokes the cosmopolitanism of the Sogdians, from Central Asia, who were great traders during this period.

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